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Saturday, November 2, 2013

We are making Progress

It has been a couple of weeks since we have taken time to update the happenings around here.

First and foremost, I must tell you that our Son Michael had a very serious car accident. He lost control of the vehicle and crashed into a power pole and some trees. No speeding or foul play, just an accident. He broke 5 ribs (#4 - #8) on his left side, near his sternum. This caused a collapsed lung. He spent 4 days in ICU on a ventilator and basically Un-conscious with chest tubes and all the "bells and whistles" . A few days after becoming able to breath on his own he was released from the hospital and he is still at home recovering. On November 7th he goes for an MRI of his left shoulder to see if surgery is required to repair damage to it.
The next thing I must tell you is that the weather here has been un-seasonably moderate. There is a system nic-named the pineapple express going through here. It is a hole string of low pressure systems back to back to back coming up from Hawaii. Our temperatures remain just above freezing and it rains A LOT. We got over 4" one day alone. We have no snow to speak of, it comes once in a while then melts off in the rain. We also have no ice on the river, not even a sign of it.
The river level bounced to near flood stage for one day then dropped 5 feet in the next 2 days. I did manage to get the boat out of the water the day the river was very high. It is now on dry land for the winter. I almost did not get to take it out of the water. The levels had dropped so low the water was 20' from land that would support our trailer. When the water level bounced up, I took the new Rhino 4 wheeler we bought, hooked it up to the trailer and pulled the boat out. I was Very impressed that a 4 wheeler could pull a 22' boat out of the water and up a pretty good hill to the winter parking spot. The 4 wheeler did it without much effort, like it was supposed to be able to do that.

Now, on to the progress.

Myra plained and cut all of the wood for some new shelves in her craft area. I did the assembly work for here and we hung them up.

I don't know why the bottom of this picture keeps getting cut off. I have tried re-loading it three times. ????

She managed to fill them within one day, with all of her stamps for making greeting cards.

I got the floor and ramp put on the shop foundation and I could not wait to try it out.

I used the starter cuts from the logs I cut for making 2"x4" boards to make the cover for the ramp. The stack of wood on the porch area is the same wood that becomes the 2" x 4"s in some up coming pictures. The slab on the saw horses shows that work is still in progress cutting slabs at this point in time.

God made the trees but I made them 2"x 4" boards. I used the Alaska Mill on the chain saw to make 2" slabs of wood then used a chalk line and circular saw with a guide attachment to cut the slabs into the usable boards.

It takes some time but I was able to make 96 each, true dimension 2" x 4" boards out of only 2 pretty large spruce trees.

The dogs watched attentively while I made the boards,,,,, for 2 or 3 days if you can believe that. (not true)

You can see the stack of boards on the porch area and obviously work is proceeding on the walls.

I was given the 44'x 50" double pain window you see setting on the side of the building.

The walls are now as complete as they are going to get for now. There is a 65" wide door in the front and the rear so it has a drive thru. I have not put the back ramp on yet, it can wait for a while. The important thing is to get this thing under cover. The logs on the right of the building are becoming the floor joist for the upstairs and some of the roof rafters. If you look very closely you can see a couple of the beams are already in place for the ceiling/floor. The post in the front and back will hold the main roof log at the peak. From this point up most of the construction will be done with logs.
I have done all of this work so far for the cost of about $200 with all expenses included. I have had some items donated, some that we earned in exchange for other services and some left over plywood from other projects. I milled all of the wall wood from our trees

Just a couple of pictures of our front yard after one of the small snow falls .

And now for one of the neat things about having Potato Aficionado's for neighbors.

These are Purple Potato's with chopped Onions added. Myra fried them up for dinner tonight. They taste just like a normal potato but they are hard to "Brown". We have a lot of these canned up for the winter along with many other types of potato's. I think we have somewhere around 15 varieties and Tom and Patty planted about 30 varieties. I never knew there was so many different types of Potato's.